


Feast and Famine

by zombified_queer



Category: Bugsnax (Video Game)
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Horror, POV Second Person, Starvation, autocannibalism, implied amputation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/pseuds/zombified_queer
Summary: You are starving to death on an island of abundant, delicious food. The irony is not lost on you.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Feast and Famine

You are starved. The Bugsnax here are so fickle. Never content to sit still and let themselves be consumed. Either they’re covered in frost and determined to freeze you over, or they work in pairs to make sure you go hungry.

It’s maddening.

But there is food. There’s sauce plants along the beach. How they grow in sand is anyone’s guess. It’s not particularly nutrient-dense particulate, but the sauce plants have proven themselves to be hardy.

It’s not the only food.

You’ve toyed with the idea for a while. The husk sits there in the shipwreck, staring out of desiccated sockets. The flesh is dried down to jerky, the bones brittle. 

It’s your companion, the one you confide in about your research into Bugsnax. And it’s the perfect lab partner. It can’t hold things or hand you tools, but it will never talk back. Never ask a stupid question. Never tell you your research is silly.

Based on the scraps of clothing, you’d guess it’s a Grumpus pirate, shipwrecked on Snaktooth. Perhaps starved to death without knowing what Bugsnax are. Or perhaps double-crossed and killed by the crew. Who it was doesn’t matter. 

It’s your companion now, always listening so intently.

When you moved it to set up your lap, something snapped off in your paw. A chunk of desiccated flesh, dried worse than jerky. Mummification at an alarming rate considering the sea is so close. It was impulse that made you put it in your mouth, choke it down. You snatched saline seawater in your paws and swallowed it for some sort of relief.

It wasn’t bad, per se. It would be better drowned in sauce to keep the flesh from sticking to your throat. Perhaps a good ketchup or hot sauce. Or a smoky barbeque to keep the taste of desiccation and rot at bay. After all, the only water here is the waves rolling along the beach.

It would be aesthetically pleasing, under other circumstances.

But most nights it’s you and the corpse and the drone of the waves. The Snax make their own chirps and calls. But you’ve watched them tear people apart like emotional fools. They’re research samples, left to their own devices like a petri dish in a sterile lab.

So it’s you and the corpse.

You know where the other sauce plants are. It would be easy to walk into the ghost of Snaxburg and take from Wambus’ garden. You would have your pick of sauces. You could take five different flavors and mix them in combinations no other Grumpus has seen before.

It’s you. It’s the corpse. And it’s hot sauce harvested from inside the volcano. 

There’s no one on this stretch of beach, so to be so paranoid about being found is silly. Paranoia is Snorpinton’s domain and it’s one he lords over. But you worry. Something keeps you from being content with this choice to ward off starvation.

You were right about the hot sauce and the taste. It’s sharp, almost sickeningly so. And the rot is sweet, like overripe fruits. Piling on the sauce, you choke it down. The meat sticks in your throat like an orange peel. Like dust and smoke. 

Your body wants to reject it. Wants to vomit. But you insist, swallowing until it’s down.

Sips of seawater and it’s over. There’s only bones and rags left. 

You’re content with that. Triffany might even appreciate a new skull. But for now, it’s you and the bones and the knowledge of what you’ve done. 

The Bugsnax seem quieter tonight. You know they don’t feel any higher emotions. They don’t even feel pain. They only seem quieter. They can’t really be quieter in your presence. It’s all an illusion, a mind trick played on yourself. 

It’s just you, the bones, and the infinite drone of the waves.

But hunger is a feral beast. 

It’s only a day later when you find yourself hungry again. The sauce pods can only do so much. It’s a much less satisfying meal without something to pair it with. 

The Snax shy from you, almost scared. Which is silly because Snax have no need for fear. They’re designed to be appealing and to be eaten. They’re born or hatched or whatever with the intent to be consumed and no thoughts about danger or fear or pain.

But they won’t let you catch them, always slipping away when you think you’ve got them. They’re toying with you. Or seem to be. 

Hunger is rabid, even at the best of times. It comes clawing at you again. The pain wracks your body with desperation.

It’s you. And it’s the bones.

You snap them like a primal thing, sucking long-dried marrow. It’s the consistency of ready-made meals. Those used to be so easy to make and eat while you continued with research. And you break these bones so completely, unwilling to leave a single edible scrap. It makes the hungry thing coiled in your chest quiet, if only for a moment.

It’s you. And it’s the infinite drone of the waves. And it’s you.

Auto-cannibalism is not technically a crime. But that journalist provides you with the Snax that shied from you. For research, you tell them. For the forward momentum of science.

But it’s for you and your stomach. Always has been. Always will be. Every one you eat is a small, petty victory over the Snax for shying from you. For toying with you when you were starved and desperate for any relief.

It’s you. It’s the leg separate from you. And it’s hot sauce on a moonless night.


End file.
